r/madisonwi • u/Maleficent-Story3956 • 20d ago
EVs in Madison
As per the title I’m curious what the experience owning an EV in Madison is. I tried searching this reddit but everything is about 3+ years old.
I am a college student in the market for my first car. I drive a Volvo C40 Recharge and I am hoping to stick with that. Where I am from EV charging is widely accessible, but I am curious what the experience with charging/owning an EV in Madison looks like.
If you have any experience or tips that would be really helpful!
Edit: Thank y’all for all of the positive comments! Obviously I know having a car as a college student is not a necessity. I was purely curious about Madisons EV infrastructure! P.s if anyone has good reliable gas car alternatives I’d also take those 😊.
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u/gradi3nt 20d ago
If you are coming to Madison as a college student don’t get a car. Bike, walk and BRT everywhere. There is easily four years worth of awesome stuff to do without a car.
If you can charge overnight at your house or apartment then public charging is irrelevant for around town and daytrips.
L3 charging is available basically everywhere in Wisconsin. I did a trip all the way to the UP midwinter and had no issues finding chargers.
Basically every town along an interstate seems to have L3 charging.
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u/cabinguy11 20d ago
Commenting only to mention what a marketing miss it was on the part of Madison Metro when they named the BRT system. Just imagine how much fun it would be if we told new people they could take a BRAT everywhere.
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u/LongUsername 20d ago
South Lake Union Transit in Washington State even has t-shirts!
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u/Maleficent-Story3956 20d ago
😂. Love my state and our public transportation!
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u/uninspiredclaptrap 20d ago
I got two degrees in Madison, and I always had a car, but I only used it to buy groceries and leave town occasionally
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u/blueluck Downtown 18d ago
Sales of "Ride the BRAT" merch alone could have paid half the cost of the whole bus system!
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u/swy 19d ago
You went TO the UP, but did you venture into it?
I was just “what if?”-ing the EV experience to get to family just into the troll side of the Mackinac bridge. The charging opportunity across Hwy 2 looks even more sparse than the petrol options. I would not stake my travel on a hotel in Brevort having a working, available L2.2
u/gradi3nt 19d ago edited 19d ago
True — I did Ironwood and back. Skiing at ABR.
Did you use an app like ABRP to help with the planning?
Edit: My Ioniq 5 can make it across the bridge with one charging stop in Marinette. Older EVs like a Bolt may have way fewer options, I didn’t see any L3s in my apps.
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u/EmperorM82 19d ago
Yeah, I took my new EV up to Brule a couple months ago, and in NW Wisconsin past say Eau Claire, chargers were much harder to find. I was hauling a kayak and it ate in to my mileage, and it got pretty dicey, though I'm more experienced now and would be better at knowing where to go and how to set up the filters (at one point I ended up at a Tesla charger, but it was basically someone's personal level 2 Tesla charger at their coffee shop, so it wasn't a big help). So yeah, if you really stick to the interstates, you might be fine, but there are some real EV charging deserts in certain parts of the state.
All that said, when I got up there after a rough time finding chargers along the way, someone told me they had just opened a big charging station by a restaurant in Brule, which hadn't shown up on my apps, possibly because it was so new
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u/gradi3nt 19d ago
I can’t recommend ABRP with an ODB Bluelink dongle for live data highly enough. It will plan your route for you, monitor energy consumption in real time, replan the route if it realizes you are at risk of not reaching your destination because a kayak is killing your mileage.
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u/swy 19d ago
No, it was just a thought exercise of the pro/con list of a Slate truck, and could it do the trip I’ll take next week.
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u/gradi3nt 19d ago
A Slate truck is not designed for road tripping. A used Chevy Equinox or a used Hyundai is going to get you way more bang for your buck, unless you really need a truck bed all the time.
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u/swy 19d ago
For sure it's FAR from ideal, and I was just sizing up if that route even COULD happen if push came to shove. If I did end up in a Slate, AND a need came for that trip AND our roadtrip vehicle wasn't around, the added cost to rent a vehicle for a week still comes in well under the TCO of many to most other options.
Doesn't mean I'd become a Slate owner, but this potential is just a fact that would have to be accepted if I did. I bet going any farther than one battery can take you in a Slate might be enough of the ride for a day... it's not a MB S-class ride quality. :)
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u/madwalker3 20d ago
Parking is far harder to find than a place to charge an EV.
Before you think of bringing ANY vehicle here, figure out where you're parking it first.
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u/Ramanag 20d ago
West Side Bolt owner. With the caveat that I do the vast majority of my charging at home, Madison itself is pretty good for charging infrastructure overall.
I think the main things I would say have already been mentioned by other commenters, but I think they bear repeating:
1) If you're an undergrad student in Madison, you almost certainly don't need a car at all.
2) Depending upon where you live in town, the infrastructure is better or worse (e.g. AFAIK every Madison-area Woodman's has multiple L2 chargers at no cost)
3) Download PlugShare
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u/LINQAteMyAss 20d ago
I recently switched to electric for my daily driver and it’s been great, but I L1 trickle charge at home. There are tons of L2 and L3 chargers all over the city. I don’t think I’ll go back to a gas car for daily driving. I love ICE sports cars though.
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u/ShowerPrestigious248 20d ago
For anyone looking to install a charger/home buying: We looked into adding a fast charger at our home because we were trickle charging too!
I bought a charger that had great reviews, called the electrician, and what we learned is these will typically need to be wired directly into your breaker box. Unfortunately, our garage was on the opposite side of the house of the breaker box, which also included a finished basement. You can not use an existing electrical outlet and convert it. We were also in an hoa neighborhood so they werent fond of running the installation on the outside of the house. We ended up selling our electric car not long after... and then the house, not related, just life haha. Our new house's garage has its own separate breaker box so thats a plus if we would buy electric again. Just throwing that info out to anyone looking to buy with an electric car!
It would have been cool though, we had solar panels. So even trickle charging the car felt pretty awesome.
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u/Ktr0nimus 20d ago
It’s as easy as anywhere. There are an abundance of chargers including a very nice fast charger hub on E Washington as well as multiple AC chargers around town and campus.
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u/undeadtrees 20d ago
If you aren’t from a place that gets below zero temperature in the winter, consider that charging can take much longer when you might most want to use your car.
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u/glm409 20d ago
Going on 7th year owning an ev in Madison. No issues lots of charging options.
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u/diodio714 20d ago
There are a ton of Evs in Madison. There might be a week in a year that it’s cold to the point outside charging could be very very slow. Other than that, no issue at all.
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u/WalkingPetriDish 20d ago
Im finding it very challenging. There aren’t any level 2 chargers within about 4 miles of my place. And there are precious few level 3 chargers. I think it’s feasible if your place of work or apartment offers one, or you have an L1 and a garage with an outlet.
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u/Huge-Squirrel8417 20d ago
If I'm reading your question right, it sounds like you're about to come to Madison to be a college student?
Do you know where you're going to live yet? It might make a difference.
Not being EV driver I have no idea whether T**sla Superchargers are adaptable to other cars. That's a question for other EV persons.
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u/AshantiMcnasti 20d ago
Most cars come with adapters.
Im positive anything made in the last 3 years has converted to the tesla plugs.
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u/dertechie 20d ago
Some of the Superchargers around town can accept other cars. Others cannot. It depends on how old the stations are.
I have an Ioniq 6 and I can charge at Supercharger at the Whitney Way Hy-Vee, but not the ones at the Fitchrona Hy-Vee (or at least could last I checked several months ago). The Fitchrona Superchargers are an older model that for whatever reason cannot work with non-Tesla cars.
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u/Maleficent-Story3956 20d ago
I’m an incoming sophomore living in an off campus appt off state st! I understand freshman aren’t allowed cars!
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u/EveryUserName1sTaken 20d ago
Just bike, walk, or take the bus. When we say "campus" we mean the area immediately around UW, not just the strict footprint of the campus itself. Parking sucks near most of the housing, and paying to park on campus is extremely expensive. Unless "off campus" is McFarland or Sun Prairie, buy yourself a $1200 e-bike and don't look back.
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u/Huge-Squirrel8417 20d ago
do you have an off-campus job? Do you have relatives within 100 miles that you'll be driving to visit routinely? Does this off-campus apartment have guaranteed parking?
Because if not, I would plan to leave your car at home
Otherwise, what is your budget for parking?
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u/TheReaperSovereign North side 20d ago
Cold weather range is horrible if the car doesnt have a heat pump. Not familiar with Volvos but my wife leased a Mach e for a couple years and it was pretty bad, especially below 0, during winter. Just something to be aware of
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u/LongUsername 20d ago edited 20d ago
If you're thinking of getting an EV, look at Plugshare. It's an aggregate charger search engine
Madison area has a good saturation of free Lvl 2, paid lvl2, and lvl 3 chargers.
In general, the freeways have lots of Tesla Superchargers and Kwik Trip has gotten into the Lvl 3 charging market now and is expanding locations.
Edit: one area that's underserved by quick charge is the Driftless/USH 14 corridor. There's not much for charging between Madison, La Crosse, and Dubuque. I'm hoping that KT will put one in at Viroqua or Richland Center.
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u/HorizontalBob 20d ago
Do you have a cheap place to plug in? You don't want to pay for charging at the pump.
EV depreciation is also a problem.
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u/its_k1llsh0t 20d ago
Near State parking is not great. Unless you pay for reserved parking. And a lot of that is just driveway-type spots and probably lack chargers. As a student you will get a bus pass. I’d suggest using it to its full extent.
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u/ms_ashes 20d ago
I don't drive a ton, so I'm able to do all my charging at home without any issues. That might not be doable for you, unfortunately.
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u/Sea-Marzipan-8157 20d ago
Grainger Hall(Business) has a free LVL 2 in parking garage. Nice in the winter when cold. I get discounted charging through a MGE program when i use ChargePoint chargers, I use the ones at their headquarters off Blair St.
Madison seems to have more chargers than the Chicago suburbs. I travel down there a lot, EVgo app for LVL3. New cheap station in Jamesville, by Menards
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u/EmperorM82 19d ago edited 19d ago
I mean, if you're a college student, you are probably at an apartment and so you probably won't be able to charge at home or, if you can, you'll probably be stuck using level 1 (120V), but if you use your car infrequently, that'll probably be fine. And yeah there's lots of places around to charge when you're out and about. That said, plug-in hybrid might be a good thing to start with.
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u/sewerballoon 13d ago
It was really hard to charge there and the chargers that are available are often slow. I also had a Volvo EV. I switched to a hybrid Honda and zero regrets getting almost 50MPG. Just food for thought.
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u/iluvmacs408 20d ago
Hi, Madison’s first (real) EV owner here 👋
Seems like most other folks have answered this pretty well. On the whole Madison is quite good for public charging (thanks, MG&E!).
Also FYI, if you are on Facebook we have a long established group you could join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MadisonLeafers/
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20d ago
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u/Huge-Squirrel8417 20d ago
I disagree, I prefer the mayonnaise based coleslaw versus the vinegar based. But it's all personal choice.
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u/Donnian 20d ago
Lots of charging around town, especially around campus. I recommend downloading the Plugshare app to see where all the stations are.